


But Love Grows Cold

by Lucky107



Series: A Red, Red Rose [9]
Category: Hell on Wheels (TV)
Genre: 19th Century, Betrayal, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Jealousy, One-Sided Attraction, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 17:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10194701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky107/pseuds/Lucky107
Summary: Some serve as a friendly reminder of the life left behind while others are simply foreign and strange.[Season 3]





	

**Author's Note:**

> The Water is Wide - Órla Fallon - 2000

The Omaha station is busy, far busier than Bonnie Mae was anticipating, so she sticks close to Elam Ferguson and Eva Toole in order to stay afloat among the sea of faces.  Some of them serve as a friendly reminder of the life left behind on the railroad three months prior while others are simply foreign and strange.

At her side, Eva's about to remark on all the hubbub when someone calls out, "Bonnie Mae?"

Mickey McGinnes.

Bonnie hasn't heard a word from either of the McGinnes brothers since the disbanding of the railroad, so it comes as a mild surprise that she should find Mickey's smiling face among the returning workers - alone.  As bashful as she was on the day they first met, Bonnie returns Mickey's contagious smile.  "Well, ain't you a sight for sore eyes, Mr. McGinnes?"

She's barely had time to recover since the birthing of Eva's baby, upon which she became the nurse, the babysitter, and the maid as the need arose, and it shows.  Still, Mickey greets her with a warm and welcome embrace.

"You winter in Omaha, then?"  He asks, running his hand across the expanse of her back as if to confirm she's really there.

Bonnie nods, modest, into his shoulder.  "Aye—"

The train whistle blows loudly, signaling the nearing departure, and there's a flicker of darkness in Mickey's beautiful blue eyes that wasn't present before.  It doesn't go unnoticed; something has changed since the last time they spoke and Bonnie's not sure if it's him or if it's her.  She does know, however, that this is not the place to address it.

When their brief hug is cut even shorter on account of the rush, Mickey presses a hasty kiss to Bonnie Mae's knuckles and says, "Don't be a stranger, lass."

But somehow she's afraid she already is.

\- - -

Hell on Wheels.

Each time she pitches the sick tent a little further down the line, it feels like coming home.  In her heart the emotions conflict - there's a homesickness for all the places she's yet to see and a repulsion for the memories of all the places she's already been - but nonetheless this has become her home.

The first time she stepped down off that train she thought the railroad was her fresh start.  Given her largely nomadic background, the constant relocation was all she could have asked for... but somewhere along the way, Bonnie Mae took root.

Her world is constantly changing; with the places she goes, and the people she meets, it's a new experience every day.  But there are things - _people_ \- that keep her coming back to the railroad long after she knows she shouldn't.  For as much as Bonnie wishes her ties to this place could be severed by forces beyond her control, on the heels of Cullen Bohannon's successful trial she feels a touch of giddy delight...

With one, two brisk steps up from the street Bonnie Mae sees herself into the newly minted Phoenix Saloon.

A sole proprietorship now, the saloon and the brothel have become a lucrative business venture for one Mickey McGinnes.  While it's no longer an establishment that Bonnie frequents citing a lack of time, she cuts through the celebratory cheer with ease when she does.

"Well, if it isn't Bonnie MacLeod," Mickey greets, reaching behind the counter for a stiff drink.  But Bonnie doesn't make any effort to settle in once she's at the bar and he knows she's not here for the party.  "Hell of a day, huh?  First one's on me, if you're lookin' to stick 'round a while."

"Thanks, Mick, but not today," she insists.  "I's due back any minute to meet Mr. Beers an'—"

"Wallace Beers?"  Mickey asks skeptically.  "That ol' con artist?"

"Oh, like you's so clean?"  They share a laugh as Mickey pours himself a drink, but the mood soon sobers.  "Don't know what you said to 'im, but that brother of yours' been hangin' 'round Doc Durant again.  He'll find himself in real trouble with Mr. Bohannon if he catches wind of this, y'know."

"I know, lass, I know," he assures, resting his hand over Bonnie's on the countertop.  "Thank you for comin' to me first.  You's got a real heart of gold, Miss Bonnie Mae."

\- - -

With the last of the tent poles and crates tethered into the back of the wagon, Bonnie shakes the driver's grubby hand.  "Thank you, Mr. Dufray - you're more than welcome to whatever's left here," she says, pressing her flask to him.  "Just remember this needs to make it in one piece."

"Many thanks," Dutch says and he tips his hat with gratitude.  "You take care, Miss MacLeod."

Bonnie nods before turning to pick her way through the muddy remnants of the town; with Dutch Dufray's lopsided smile on her mind, she's got plenty enough distraction from the wasteland left behind.  'Civilization' is what politics would dub such rubbish - the blemish of progress.

When the train whistle sounds, Bonnie hurries up to the platform where Cullen Bohannon awaits the last of his railroad's employees.  "She's packed an' ready, Sir."

With a stiff nod of acknowledgement, he flags the young Scot through.

But Bonnie's late to the train car and finds herself once again all alone as she sifts through a sea of strangers.  It's full beyond capacity in an effort to move all of the railroad's employees in one trip, like cattle to the slaughter.  The best she can hope for here is a sturdy place to stand next to some recently-bathed merchants.

She's almost at her destination when she hears the ever-familiar laughter of Mickey McGinnes.

Mickey, seated, entertains his gaggle of working girls with drunken enthusiasm and Bonnie opts to move along by without a word.  He adorns the girl in his lap with cheap kisses, a display of familiarity that Bonnie Mae wishes to have no part in until he calls her out.  "Bonnie!  C'mere, lass, an' sit yourself down - there's plenty of room for one bottom more!"

Against her better judgment, Bonnie wades her way back through the sea of bodies on the now-moving train.  She staunchly refuses the seat that Mickey offers, even if he had to shoo one of his better-looking girls aside for it.

"Mick," she says loudly to be heard above the noisy chatter and rattling rail.  "Where's Sean?  Thought he'd—"

"Sean?"  Mickey asks, and between the smugness of his smile and the confusion of his bloodshot eyes, Bonnie's stomach twists into a knot.  "Sorry, lass, if he ain't here he—"

Without a word of warning, Bonnie's hand drops like a pendulum and she slaps Mickey's face.  The force of the blow leaves her palm stinging and hot, in a similar vein to Mickey's paled face, which now radiates a brilliant pink in the shape of her small hand.  The woman sitting in his lap scampers away as he's left to touch the point of contact in a shockingly sober daze.

"Bonnie, I—"

"I went to _you_ 'cause I thought you _cared_ ," she insists, livid and shaking with raw emotion.  She wants to hit him again, to hit him over and over until her hatred subsides, but this time she musters the strength to stand down.  "He's your _brother_ , Mickey, an' I trusted you to _help_ 'im."

Mickey reaches out his hand to touch hers and he thinks he wants to stop her from making a hasty judgment, to explain to her that it was for the best because Sean changed, but she pulls her hand back in haste.  "Sean, he—"

But Sean didn't change.

Sean was just trying to survive after Mickey cast him out; it's Mickey who's changed, who's been changing all along, and it took him until now to realise it.  Looking up at Bonnie, Mickey feels like he's looking into the face of his mother on the first night his father didn't come home from the saloon and that's when he knows he's made a big mistake.

Despite Bonnie's confidence in him to do the right thing, he went and he blew it.  He's come up in the image of his father, just like he swore he'd never do, and there's no amount of kindness or care that can change him for better.

Bonnie storms off without another word and Mickey's left feeling that this one's going to hurt when he's sober.


End file.
